The D-Wave Quantum Computer

The D-Wave Quantum Computer

I just watched this video on how the crew from D-Wave build their quantum computers.

You haven’t heard of D-Wave? You will.

They sell the world’s only commercial quantum computer, and recently announced an impressive new customer: a collaboration between Google, NASA and the non-profit Universities Space Research Association. What are they doing together? Research artificial intelligence.

In May 2013, D-Wave published a comparison of their technology against regular top-end desktop computers running an optimization algorithm. Using a configuration with 439 qubits, the system performed 3,600 times as fast as the best algorithm (CPLEX) on the conventional machine, solving problems with 100 or more variables in half a second compared with half an hour.

No Illusions Podcast #42 – Nikola Danaylov on The Singularity

My guest today is Nikola Danaylov (who also goes by the pseudonym Socrates), host of The Singularity 1 on 1 Podcast and SingularitySymposium.com and SingularityWEBLOG.com.

He was born in Bulgaria, but moved to Toronto in 1998 where he obtained degrees in Political Science, Philosophy and Economics. About 18 months ago he started the Singularity 1 on 1 podcast and since then has interviewed major big brains, from Kurzweil and Vinge to Wolfram and Stross.

You can hear No Illusions on Stitcher SmartRadioStitcher allows you to listen to your favorite shows directly from your iPhone, Android Phone,  BlackBerry  or Palm phones

On-demand and on the go!

Dont have Stitcher? Download it for free today at Stitcher.com or in the app stores.  Stitcher SmartRadio- The Smarter Way to listen to radio.

The H+ Summit @Melbourne is Coming to Town!

Adam Ford, who invited me to speak at last year’s Singularity Summit in Melbourne, is also organising this year’s H+ Summit in Melbourne, June 25 – 26. He asked me to post some info about it:

The H+ Summit @ Melbourne brings together an eclectic mix of rationalists, futurists, science fiction writers, AI experts, scientists, biotechnology experts, philosophers and theorists to pursue deep philosophical, scientific and technological inquiry, with the aim of being able to discern those changes which are likely to have profound impacts and those which are merely transient and or fashionable.

Technological innovation permeates all aspects of society — from tiny water purification packets and 3d printers, to GPS tracking devices, wearable smart devices, decision support systems, replaceable body parts and personal genome tests. Because technology and society evolve together, it has become increasingly important to develop a greater understanding of how technology is shaping the course of our lives. We are faced with the challenge to continuously become innovative in harnessing and controlling technological development as it accelerates on many diverse fronts. The “pioneers of the future” are faced with the necessity to become ever more resourceful. Even the most conservative thinkers agree that we have already stepped into an era of a profound change. The good news is that our human diversity continues to spawn both inventiveness and novelty.

This conference is brought to you by Humanity+ @ Melbourne (Victoria, Australia). Humanity+ explores how society might use and profit from a variety of creative and innovative thought. Join us for this adventurous journey into the future where you can make a difference! This conference will challenge and enhance your view of the future.

Seating is limited, so Secure your tickets now! >>

www.humanityplus.org.au

Partial list of Speakers and subjects:

Unfortunately I can’t make it due to Perdomo Lounge responsibilities, otherwise I’d be there with bells on.

Blue Waters To Go Online by 2011

Iowa State University will take delivery is a partner with NCSA & IBM* in the development of Blue Waters – the world’s first supercomputer to be able to sustain 1 petaflop – in 2011. (source: FoxNews). IBM says Blue Waters will have a peak performance of 10 petaflops. (source: Wikipedia)

Blue Waters, an implementation of PERCS technology, is planned to be composed of:
– more than 25,000 eight-core POWER7 CPUs with 32MB on-die L3 cache running at 4.0 GHz (200,000 cores)
– more than 1 petabyte of main memory
– more than 10 petabytes of disk storage
– half an exabyte of archival storage
– up to 400 Gbit/s external (Internet) connectivity

Why is this important?

Well, according to Ray Kurzweil (listen to 2005 my interview with him here), the human brain probably has a computational level of 20 petaflops. (source: The Enlightened Blog)

And we all know that Moore’s Law says that theoretical computing speeds double every 2 years. That means we should have a supercomputer doing 20 petaflops by 2013.

Take THAT, stupid Mayans.

* The first draft of this post said Iowa State was “taking deliver” of Blue Waters. My thanks to Trish Barker from National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) for sending me an email pointing out that “while Iowa State is a partner on the project and scientists from Iowa State will use the supercomputer to do big science, the supercomputer will be here at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign”.

She also gave me these additional links:

Overview: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/BlueWaters/
The hardware: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/BlueWaters/system.html
The building: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/AboutUs/Facilities/npcf.html